


Yield Unto

by glymr



Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Character Study, Escape from Abusive Relationship, Fae & Fairies, Forced Pregnancy, Gen, Past Abuse, Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 15:30:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13251174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glymr/pseuds/glymr
Summary: I can't bring him with me.





	Yield Unto

_I can't bring him with me._

The thought was an icy sword through her chest.

She hadn't allowed herself to think too deeply about escape, lest she slip and reveal herself to her “family.” Oh, she craved freedom, craved it every moment, even when her Lord was driving her out of her mind with ecstasy. But she didn't _think_ about it, didn't consciously plan for it, just waited and watched.

For the first several decades she hadn't even been able to do that much, wrapped in Raith's Will, subjugated completely to his desires. Gradually, she had created a space in her mind, separate from him, a tiny place locked inside herself where he could not touch her.

He'd taken her because he'd wanted a wizard child. Someone who would serve him and his Court. She'd been lucky that the birth control spell, cast in her last few moments of sanity, had lasted as long as it did.

It took her a long time to learn that he'd been cursed: he could not feed off his male children. Privately, in the room in her mind, she thought that it was rather pathetic as death curses went. Why not make him unable to feed on _any_ of his children? Or anyone at all?

But then, the woman who had thrown the curse had been weak, and perhaps that had been the best she could do.

It had failed in its objective anyway. Since he could not control them, Raith had taken to simply killing his male children, starting with the one the curse had been designed to 'protect'.

It had been hard to convince him to let Thomas live. “We cannot be sure he isn't a wizard,” she'd pleaded. “There is no way to truly tell. Many bloom as teenagers, it is true, but some do not show their power until later in life. He could be as old as thirty or forty before it manifests!”

 And so, grudgingly, he'd let the boy remain alive.

 Maggie spent long hours thinking about killing herself and sending her own death curse against her Lord, but in the end, she craved life too much. Killing herself would be too much like letting him win.

 Instead, she turned her thoughts to escape. She knew the Ways better than any Wizard alive. She had spent decades exploring them with the Leansidhe.

 But...Thomas. Her darling Thomas.

Maggie could escape into Faerie and survive. She could even move around the mortal world and shield herself from his tracking spells. But a child of his blood? As long as she had Thomas, Raith would always be able to find them. And as long as Thomas was with her, Raith would be at risk. Through Thomas, his enemies could find him, control him, perhaps even kill him. Raith would never let them go; he would track them to the ends of the earth, then destroy Thomas and drain her dry.

She could not protect Thomas, she admitted to herself. Not from his father and not from his father's enemies.

 * * *

The ritual was easy enough, the Leanansidhe's name musical on her lips. It amused Maggie that the historians insisted on every pronunciation of her name but the correct one. But, of course Lea had seen to that. 

She was as beautiful as ever, exactly as she had been when she'd offered Maggie escape from Ebeneezer's harsh rule.

“Can you protect my son? Can you protect Thomas?”

 “He is not mere chattel; he is of the blood of the White Court. To take him in this way would be a grave insult and a violation of the Accords.”

 She'd known that would be the answer.

And so she'd bargained for her freedom instead. Raith wanted another child of her, and he was suspicious of her seeming inability to conceive, now that she had done so once. He was obtaining another fertility potion, he'd arrogantly told her last night.

If she'd already been pregnant, perhaps she could have bartered the life of her second child to the faeries before Raith learned of it. But a child raised among the fairies would be only slightly better off than one raised by the White Court. Besides, she did not want to carry another child of Raith's.

Instead, she promised that Lea would be the Godmother of any future children of hers. It was the best deal she could make. She doubted that she would have another child, but wizards lived long lives. Who knew what might happen in another century? And if she did, he or she would have a modicum of protection, as well as obligation. She knew all too well the double-edged sword a fairy's interest could be.

“Henceforth,” intoned Lea, “you shall be known as Margaret Gwendolyn LeFay.” Maggie felt Raith's poison disappearing from her blood, felt the compulsion lifting, and for the first time in decades, breathed as a free woman. “We must away,” said Lea, and Margaret nodded.

There was a sound from the next room.

Thomas was calling for his mother.

Tears streaming down her face, Maggie stepped through the Way to the Nevernever.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been mainlining old dresden-kink memes at LJ and Dreamwidth, and ran across a discussion of Maggie's choice to leave Thomas behind when she escaped Lord Raith, knowing that his father either raped or killed all of his children. This is an attempt to answer the question of why and how she might have made that choice (and as a bonus, to explain why she made Lea Harry's Godmother). It's the first new fic I've posted in some time!


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